Do you burst into tears and curse your miserable luck? Do you quit and return to easier, more lucrative employment in your former career as a solicitor? You are not, then, Adam Brickell, who retains his calm, methodical manner after six months as director of integrity at the British Horseracing Authority.

"Baptism of fire" is a phrase with which the 33-year-old is now very familiar, thanks to the cases of Mahmood al-Zarooni and of Sungate, which have made headlines around the world. But he smiles at this description of his time in the job and points out that he is not "absolutely new" to the work, having been part of the BHA's legal team since early 2009. "Two of those years were spent pretty heavily involved in big corruption cases," he says.

"It's a new role and we've had some high-profile stuff. But I feel I'm coming to it not totally fresh and wet behind the ears. I do feel pretty comfortable with how we dealt with most of it, I feel we're getting through it. We're not through it yet and we're certainly not sitting back, thinking, job done. But I feel we're doing OK."

Brickell, giving his first media interview, is known in racing, if at all, as "the new Paul Scotney", which is accurate only inasmuch as he succeeded the older man to the title.

Scotney had been 27 years a policeman and met the world with a frankly suspicious glare, seeming to be constantly engaged in the estimation of recent felonies committed by those in his line of sight, then moving swiftly to the question of appropriate punishment.

There is no such immediate threat in Brickell's gaze and his promotion by the BHA's chief executive, Paul Bittar, in his first year at the time, seemed to signal a change in the way integrity would be approached. Brickell describes the sport as telling Scotney, at his appointment during an especially troubled time in 2003, that: "We need you to set something up and come and give us a short, sharp shock."

Brickell adds: "I think that worked perfectly. That seemed to be what was required, some quite serious action and I think what Paul's done is fantastic, if you look at the model and team he's put in place. We are held up there as a model for other sports. But I feel, 10 years down the track now … you don't need to ram it down people's throats as much, maybe. I'd like to think our participants understand it a bit better."

Brickell has no doubt about one of the BHA's more controversial recent decisions, to charge, try and punish Zarooni within three days of releasing the news that some of his horses had tested positive for anabolic steroids. Banned from training for eight years, Zarooni returned to his native Dubai and was unavailable for questioning when seven more positives turned up among his horses.

"We felt that our obligation to act in the best interests of the sport was to get this wrapped up quickly," says Brickell, who doubts whether there was any more useful or reliable information to be wrung from Zarooni. He feels a longer process would have exposed the BHA to accusations of dragging the matter out for no good reason, a complaint made this week by a senior trainer in relation to the Sungate case.

Brickell hopes it will only be a matter of weeks before the BHA concludes its investigation into what went on at Zarooni's yard but, surprisingly, will not yet commit to publishing any details as a cathartic offering to the racing and betting public. Has he no fear that official reticence on the subject could be seen as a whitewash?

"I can assure you that's not happening. There's some pretty tough questions being asked. I'm speculating but, if we get to the point where the story we've previously been given [Zarooni acting entirely alone] has been corroborated and we're not going to be able to identify anything to the contrary, then that might have to be the answer, as frustrating as that might be for some conspiracy theorists.

"If we don't identify any other breaches of the rules, I think it's fair to say there'll be an element of it that would have to remain private between Godolphin and BHA … recommendations to them [Godolphin], if there's anything operationally that we can maybe do better. I think we'll probably be giving them some pointers – I'm saying this without even knowing what they'd be likely to be."

Would confidentiality be appropriate in such a case? Surely all trainers and the public would benefit from knowing what the best practice advice was from the regulator after such a high-profile story? Brickell's instinct is still to be cagey. "If there's general advice we can give to all trainers as a result of this, we probably would look at a way of conveying that to them."

At the end of the Zarooni case, the BHA's policy on dope-testing will be reconsidered, with the possibility of more emphasis on out-of-competition testing in future, that having been the means by which this trainer was caught. "That might be a way we go," Brickell says.

"It could well be, but I want the opportunity to look at the whole piece … No sport tests every participant at every opportunity. There's always got to be a certain approach, I hesitate to say risk-based, but you do it in the most sensible way and the most efficient way." Brickell feels there is a case to be made for more money being spent on testing but has no idea whether it will be approved at a time of such tight budgets.

He can say little on the Sungate case, with charges having been made against the trainer Gerard Butler only last week, while other unnamed trainers are thought to be on the point of being dragged into the story. An aspect which must concern him, however, is the refusal of the vets practice involved, the Newmarket-based firm Rossdales, to co-operate with the BHA investigation.

"This isn't necessarily the party line but I suppose I'm slightly more sympathetic to that position if they are genuinely citing client confidentiality, legal reasons for not giving us information. Perhaps they could be doing more but we do have to recognise they have obligations. Let's not forget, they can't be disclosing lots of details about their clients without their consent."

While the BHA has no direct authority over vets, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons is a powerful regulator and Brickell hopes it can be "more active" in future. "The evidence of the last couple of years is that they're prepared to. They took action against James Main [the vet involved in the case of Moonlit Path, injected with an anti-bleeding agent on raceday], they've conducted a couple of other investigations.

"They've shown an interest in what happens when vets are involved in our disciplinary cases and that gives me some encouragement that they are keeping an eye on it now. I'd hope that the one regulator they've got already is enough and that that regulator acts.

"We'd have to look to the RCVS first. That's their role and as long as they can assure us that they're keeping an eye on things and prepared to act if anything untoward has happened, that's the right and proper way of dealing with things."

While Rossdales have clammed up, Brickell is satisfied that he can recover any necessary evidence from the trainers who use them. "We know trainers can get hold of information from his vet, it just takes consent and that's worked for us previously. We've got those records because we've said to the trainer, we want these, we know your vet's got them, so go and get hold of them, and that's worked. So that's always going to be our first course."

Steroid stories aside, racing has suffered from a steady, drip-drip of corruption cases over the past decade, most recently involving the well-established jockey Eddie Ahern, who was banned for 10 years. Brickell has advance knowledge of any prosecutions that may be on the horizon; what can he say about the level of corruption in the sport?

"I suppose it's pretty hard to measure and I'm not going to sit here and tell you we're never going to have another one. Whilst there's an opportunity, no matter what we do in terms of putting out deterrents and messages that you might get caught, people will try it on.

"I guess it's within the last 18 months or so that we've had some really high-profile, big penalties handed down and it may be that it takes a little while for that to trickle through, the effect of that. The very nature of these investigations is that you're working through a period of investigation of something that happened a few months ago.

"The more you expose, the more you have those serious sanctions, logic would suggest there's going to be enough of a message out there to deter people but you probably also have to accept that there will be people trying it on whilst there's a chance to cheat and gain. So we remain vigilant. The systems we've got in place are fantastic and the way that we deal with intelligence, that's far, far beyond what I've seen in other sports."